Hey listeners, just a heads up before we get started on today's episode.

The story we're about to hear includes a description of a miscarriage that involves a lot of bleeding.

Christina Zilke's medical nightmare started on a drive from her home in Washington, D.C. to Northeast, Ohio.

She and her husband were going to celebrate her brother's wedding.

I had some really heavy bleeding. It was to the point like we had to stop and clean out the car and like change all the clothes.

At this point, Zilke wasn't worried. She already knew that she was having a miscarriage.

At her first prenatal checkup, eight weeks into her pregnancy, there was no heartbeat.

Laboratory tests confirmed it was a miscarriage. Weeks went by.

She thought her body was just taking a while. When she had bleeding on the drive to Ohio, she assumed she had finally passed the pregnancy tissue.

But two days later, she started to bleed again.

A lot. She climbed into an empty bathtub at her dad and stepmom's house, so it wouldn't make a mess.

It was passing like blood clots like the size of golf balls.

And at that point, I woke up my husband and then I was like, please ring a phone. We need to call.

The nurse on the advice line told them to go to the emergency room.

They arrived at university hospitals, tri-point medical center in Painsville, Ohio, and around 6 a.m.

She got an ultrasound, which again found no fetal heartbeat.

But Zulky says she didn't receive any treatment. Not even IV fluids or pain medicine.

Meanwhile, she kept bleeding heavily.

So about two and a half hours into this slew of tests,

finally a nurse comes in and tells me that I'm being discharged.

They said they needed to prove there was no fetal development.

And I was told that I could come back in two days for a repeat hormone test to confirm I was miscarrying.

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